Modern Turkeys socio-political influence has been shaped by its secular statehood & its old 'islamic' empire based model

Turkey emerged from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I ( 1914 – 1918 ). Unlike most Middle Eastern countries, Turkey won its independence soon after the war and quickly developed into a modernised state based on Western political models.

It lies along three major bodies of water the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea—and has the strategic Bosporus Strait running through it. Turkey shares borders with Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, & Syria.

Asia Minor (modern Turkey) became part of the Islamic world in 1071 , when Seljuk Turks conquered the Byzantines. The Ottomans succeeded the Seljuks in the early 1300s and slowly assumed control of most of the Middle East. Although the Ottoman Empire included significant numbers of Christians and Jews, Muslims dominated the government and the military. The Ottoman Empire reached its peak in the mid-1500s but was hampered by severe economic problems and corruption. It had a weak central government, and local officials concerned themselves more with making a profit than with governing effectively.

In the 1700s, European powers recognised and took advantage of the Ottoman Empire's relative weakness. In the late 1700s, disastrous wars against Russia and other powers brought the empire close to collapse. This crisis led to a series of major government reforms called the Tanzimat (Reorganization). Aimed at increasing efficiency and reducing corruption, the Tanzimat introduced Western-style governmental institutions, such as a parliament, that increased the power of the central government.

In the early 1900s, a group called the Young Turks rose up, overthrew Sultan Abdulhamid II, and restored the constitutional government. They held their power only briefly, however, as they joined the group of countries that lost in World War I. With the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918 , the Ottoman Empire collapsed.